Surprise Keynote Speaker Takes Social Networking Speech Off In Left Field

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The camera panned the audience and you got the feeling it was the Academy Awards for the Internet. The mega stars and their significant others were all in place, just like Oscar night. You could recognize the faces. With their eyes glued on the stage, Godin, Rowse, Starak, Clark, Kern, Fallen and everyone else, all representing their genre of the Net just like actors have their genre, waited intently for the host to appear.

From behind the curtain he emerged, baseball great Willie Keeler. Keeler, who actually died in 1923 at age 50, made a second appearance courtesy of, well, call it the Twilight Zone Online.

His speech? Keeler got right to the first point: “Keep your eyes clear and hit’em where they ain’t.”

When Keeler was alive and one of the greatest batters of his time, his strategy was to hit the ball where the outfielders were not standing, hence the phrase. This time, Willie wasn’t talking about baseball or the next Internet secret sauce. His phrase was not a clever reference to SEO, blog traffic, PPC or even tribes. When he used words like “monster”, “stomper”, “crusher”, “killer” or “annihilator”, the references had nothing to do with the latest strategy for making money on the Internet.

Willie wanted to talk about water.

Why? Because while the herds of bloggers, Internet Marketers, social network strategists, Web 2.0 CEOs and all their attendant investors are following today’s business celebs, a handful - a really powerful handful - of companies and people are about to hit us “where we ain’t” - in our rights to water. Water to drink. Water to live. Water.

While the world’s eyes are on computer screens, click-throughs, downloads and all things electronic, who is watching the water rights or even our fresh water supply? Apparently, a few corporations and power-brokers.

What is the potential outcome? If you agree with Irena Salina, the award-winning independent filmmaker who directed, “Flow: For Love of Water”, the answer is a water cartel of powerful politicians and corporations who use laws and money to preserve a power that strikes at the heart of what we take for granted in Western culture - our right to water. The movie and its experts also bring into focus the notion that water as an abundant resource is unrealistic and unsustainable.

Just how much would your day today change if you were concerned about whether your family would have water? Sure, the problem could occur due to hoarding and control tactics by governments and corporations, but that wouldn’t last long. The collective world village would hunt down the troll who tried that approach and deal with them decisively - even if it were an American troll. But what if the cartel wastes the water or ruins so much of our fresh water supply that it becomes a scarce resource instead of a commodity? And what if they also own the source of what little is left? That could start a war in most any country.

The movie, which I have yet to see and look forward to seeing soon, raises a question I really like, and the promo trailer shows T. Boone Pickens discussing it: “Who owns the water?”

As the herds of humanity march deeper into the Internet in search of financial solace from an unforgiving economy, who is watching the water? Can we really lose our right to water? What innovations would crop up to sidestep that law? If you think the prohibition era spawned the movement of moonshine liquor, what would happen if we developed a collective concern that our right to drink water - any fresh water - wasn’t a given? What if people used access to water as a manipulative tool to coerce mass behavior? What if governments used water rights as a weapon of mass control in matters of foreign policy? I’d like to think that is absurd and we would never allow such insanity.

After all, we did so well with oil independence (insert tongue-in-cheek).

Would the government bail out the thirsty or the company that destroyed the water?

When it comes to social networking, we all know where we are - and where each other “are” too. Thanks to Friendfeed, Brightkite and Twitter, I can know what Chris Brogan likes about his hotel room and which direction it faces, and where he has having his next favorite beverage. We have answered the questions about where we are. The new question is, “where are we ain’t?”

With apologies to Mrs. Mary Ward, my favorite English teacher at Southwest High School….

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